To Be What We Are Not

As humans we are constantly trying to better ourselves. That is part of being that machine which is working to achieve that state of "perfection". There is a flaw however on our idea of reaching perfection. We based our society and therefore environment on ideals. Our society is made for perfect people but we remain imperfect animals. This quote shows how in essence we remain animal and how our pacts which are the basis of our society fail to maintain order: "So, even in man, a species with the gift of conscious foresight, pacts or conspiracies based on long-term best interests teetering constantly on the brink of collapse due to treachery from within. In wild animals, controlled by the struggling genes it is even more difficult to see ways in which group benefit or conspiracy strategies could possibly evolve. We must expect to find evolutionary stable strategies everywhere" (73). The governments we create are based on this type of pacts. It is not that we are treacherous by trying to break these laws but simple we are working with the ideas given to us by our genes which enter in conflict with these ideas of altruism. Taxes are an example of these altruistic ideas. We surrender part of our income in order to give something to everyone else like roads. We are reducing our (and our genes) chances of survival by giving others part of our income which could be used to buy food or other needs in bad times. Still, even though we are haunted by authority who is there to impose these altruistic laws there are people who refuse to pay taxes. We see this everywhere and it proves that to nature there is only short term.

If we continue to pretend to be what we are not society as we know it will only continue to become more corrupt. We must find a system to rule ourselves that abides the laws of nature. This will allow our species to continue evolving. This is similar to the conflict that exists between our rational and irrational parts of our brain. Our irrational being our genes' implanted behavior patterns and our rational brain the part of the brain that is given the opportunity to choose. If given the opportunity to make a rational choice most people might choose being altruistic, our irrational brain disagrees. I remember from Radio Lab's Choice that it doesn't take much to overwhelm the rational brain. This means that even if we want to be altruistic we will remain selfish. This might look like there is no way out of the situation but there is. We have been accompanied by our genes since the beginning of the species. We know them and to some extent thanks to our rational brain we can predict what they will do. If this is true then we can use this predictable selfishness to our favor and manipulate it to be altruistic. Either we adapt to our genes and follow what they say or we adapt society to manipulate our genes into making them do what we want them to do.